Is Aleh unstoppable? Let's hope not.

Aleh Jerusalem via Google Maps

A dear friend of mine is on the Aleh donors' mailing list (a fluke - she has never given them a cent).

She shared with me a recent e-mailer urging the Aleh donor base to dig deep into their wallets to grant the children "an unforgettable summer, filled with fun, laughter, and joy!"

The PR piece boasts that "they will be unstoppable". It never clarifies who that "they" is: the children, or the "dedicated staff and volunteers". But, of course, obfuscation is the name of the Aleh PR game.

So this PR piece convinces donors that their cash keeps Aleh afloat and will send 120 children to camp. 

Aleh's 2017 annual report [online here] tells a different story. There we learn that Aleh derived about 82% of its income from government sources - mainly the Ministries of Health (via the health funds or kupot), of Welfare and of Education.

Source: "Aleh 2018 End of Year Report" (Feb 19, 2019)

Bottom line: It's mostly Israeli taxpayers who are funding Aleh, whether we choose to or not. On their own figures, income from donations amounted to slightly less than 11% of total income.

But its duplicity is not the main reason I sincerely hope that Aleh is ultimately "stoppable". 

Below are five photographs of a friend's daughter who attended Aleh Gedera's school as well as its institution's afternoon program. On several occasions when my friend collected her child, she found her to be in a less than desirable state.

 Only on one of those did Aleh staff phone to forewarn her of her child's injuries.

The first and last horror shots were from the school; the others are from the afternoon program (the מעון) at the institution. The mother gave me permission to post these images.

Any institution that either inflicts such shocking wounds - or allows them to be inflicted by another child - must not be left "unstoppable". 

Help stop the sub-standard care of Aleh so that the children locked up there can return to the families and the community where they deserve to live.

Where is the "inclusion" for Aleh's residents?

The very issue of the Jerusalem Post Magazine that featured my article, "The Special Torah" [see "My brother the rabbi and his message of inclusion"] included a classic Aleh piece courtesy of its slick PR team.

Entitled "A New Rehabilitative Path in the Negev", it describes the latest Aleh project, a

"neuro orthopedic rehabilitation hospital that will attract more people to live in the area and benefit the existing population of the Negev".

From the Jerusalem Post

I do not question that the hospital will achieve those goals. Nor that it "will be a real game changer for the southern part of Israel" as Dr. Itzhak Siev-Ner, medical director of Aleh Negev states.

By the way, another hat which Dr. Siev Ner wears, according to the piece, is director of the Division of Rehabilitation at the Health Ministry which I'm sure you'll agree screams a thunderous "conflict of interests"!

But I'll leave that outrage aside to concentrate on the repeated references in this piece to "Aleh's mission of rehabilitation and inclusion".

This amazing hospital project is being constructed on the back of an institution housing 145 residents with disabilities ranging in age from 2 months (!) to 61 years. who live detached from their families - or any foster/adoptive families - and from the rest of Israeli society.

I would appreciate some clarification as to how that is remotely akin to "inclusion".

This is probably an opportune time to also note that a five year old child died at Aleh Negev just two months ago from apparent choking on a marshmallow (see "Justice, O Justice, where art thou?").

And that a second 20 year old resident at Aleh Bnei Brak died two weeks ago after suddenly "turning blue" - according to his father - and then slipping into a three-week long coma.

The first death was reported scantily in the Hebrew press while the second was not reported at all. In neither case was an autopsy performed despite the police demand for one in the first case.

Remember: these are two recent cases that have reached me. There is no way of ascertaining whether any more such tragedies have occurred.

There is a third case, reported twenty years ago where Aleh Jerusalem's own doctor conceded there had been negligence in the supervision of the child who choked to death there. Read about it here.

My brother the rabbi and his message of inclusion

My brother receiving guests in his home on the night of the event

My post below appeared as a full-page story in this past weekend's Jerusalem Post Magazine as well as on its website [here].

I am republishing it here because I think it benefits greatly from photographs which were not included by the Jerusalem Post. I have also some hyperlinks where I think they contribute to the reader's experience.

I hope you enjoy it and would be very glad to get reader's feedback on the themes I have addressed in recounting an important event at the center of which stand my youngest brother and my nephew.

OBSERVATIONS [The Jerusalem Post Magazine | June 28, 2019]
The special Torah | A haredi rabbi’s call for inclusion

FRIMET ROTH

How is a new Torah scroll linked to people with disabilities? As one hassidic rabbi, my brother, showed, it can help shatter prejudices against them.

By proudly embracing their children with disabilities, all celebrities can further that goal. But many such parents squander that opportunity. Whether ashamed or grief-stricken, they hide their special children.

• Golda Meir never spoke publicly of her granddaughter, Meira, who had Down’s syndrome.
• Yigal Alon, IDF general, Knesset member and minister institutionalized his autistic daughter, Nurit, in Scotland and never mentioned her publicly.
• Joseph and Rose Kennedy concealed the cognitive impairment of their daughter, Rosemary, in her early years. Later, after a botched lobotomy rendered her severely disabled, they institutionalized and abandoned her.
• Playwright Arthur Miller banished his newborn Down syndrome baby and never even mentioned him in his autobiography.

So my brother’s act is noteworthy – particularly given the haredi proclivity for concealing such offspring.

At my brother's home and before the parade, the scribe (sofer) completes
the writing of the Sefer Torah

He has always embraced his cognitively impaired son, Mordechai, regularly bringing him to the synagogue over which he presides and annually to the grave of the Breslover Rebbe in Uman.

Mordechai, 29, warm and affectionate, lives with his parents and three of his 13 siblings. For six years he has been an appreciated employee in a bakery. He describes his job as “Fun!”

After work he attends group activities with similarly disabled men – singing, bike-riding, gymnastics – to which he commutes independently.

Several years ago, my brother decided to pay Mordechai a rare tribute to “compensate” for the likelihood that he will never marry. Since his needs are met by his parents, my brother encouraged Mordechai to hire a scribe, or sofer to write a new Sefer Torah. A man who cannot marry often does that, but perhaps never has someone with significant cognitive disabilities done so.

Throughout the year that the scribe wrote, Mordechai enthused over the project, visiting him regularly. Toward its conclusion, preparations were made for the traditional celebration. In Mordechai’s case, these were unusually extravagant. Fancy invitations were distributed and, my brother’s apartment building and adjacent streets were adorned with gala lights, signs and balloons.

Children leading the street parade in my brother's north Jerusalem neighborhood

On the night of the Hachnasat Sefer Torah (Welcoming of the Sefer Torah) men streamed into my brother’s apartment. There the scribe drew the outline of the final words and selected guests were honored with taking the traditional quill in hand, each filling in one letter.

Mordechai had distributed invitations to his co-workers and to sundry relatives, shopkeepers, neighbors. Thus hundreds arrived to dance and sing along the route to the synagogue, the Torah gripped by Mordechai under a huppah led by a truck sporting colored flashing lights and blaring music. Women – walking, not dancing – took up the rear.

The decorated entrance to the building where my brother's family have their apartment. Women
played a separate but distinct role in the street parade.

Inside the synagogue, the men danced for another hour while the women watched via closed circuit screening in an adjoining garage. Next, relatives and congregants were bused to a hall for a three-course meal, more dancing and my brother’s speech.

The view from the synagogue's women's section was via closed-circuit television

Shortly after my brother began, Mordechai took the microphone from him (as my brother proudly told me, “He literally grabbed it out of my hand”) and declared to the crowd, “Thank you very much Daddy and Mommy!”

Soon afterward, Mordechai again approached mid-speech and whispered to his father. “Mordechai would like me to take a break,” my brother explained to his guests, “and since this is his simcha (celebration), I will.” My brother later resumed his impassioned speech, praising Mordechai and expressing thanks for such a son.

Mordechai, in the center, mingling with guests

He criticized any concealment of such offspring, stressing that it “is not the way of the Torah,” adding, 

“Mordechai’s place of employment is privileged to have him… He is a very chaste, young man, pure-hearted, a very elevated soul. He has greatness in everything relating to interpersonal mitzvot. He avoids offending others, he flees from praise. Mordechai is always happy. He is connected to the world of music; he has special movements during music. There are things that cannot be expressed vocally and that he says with his hands. There are elevated things in children with special needs: they pick up and open a siddur, and that is called prayer. As with supremely holy ancestral tzaddikim, so, too, it is among children with disabilities; the prayer book is opened and shut and this is deemed to be true prayer.”

He thanked individuals who have been devoted to Mordechai, from various charities that assist children with disabilities to his pediatric neurologist.

My brother delivering his speech at the dinner

Afterward, “Grace After Meals” booklets were distributed along with a monograph of my brother’s selected Halachic responsa – a veritable rallying cry.

For example: 

“Many of these children exhibit heightened sensitivity toward others that surpasses the rest of the world. When they see someone crying or in distress, they rush over to show interest and share in his misery. The writer of this Sefer Torah [Mordechai] is superlative in his deeds, remembering all who need help and mentioning their names in his elevated and amazing prayers. And in his great modesty, whenever he is praised for his righteousness he replies, ‘You too,” meaning that ‘You, too, are pious, so why single me out?’”

One halachic query he answered was whether to teach adults with special needs the children’s blessing after meals. His answer: 

“Teach the adult version. Though they may be incapable of reciting it entirely and properly… the benefit is the good feeling they derive from reciting the blessing in its entirety as is required.”

Addressing opponents of placing schools for girls with disabilities within communities, he wrote, 

“They fear that frequent observing of such girls will result in impaired future offspring, a view distorted to the core. In the merit of aiding [these] children, they will be blessed with everything good.”

Already an activist at Mordechai’s bar mitzvah, he declared then, 

“I’d like to thank God for this great and hidden gift, this precious soul. It is a tremendous honor to raise a child with special needs. The Chazon Ish zt”l would rise in the presence of the parents, as well as for the children themselves, and said “The enormity of their souls is beyond our comprehension.”

I must confess that as the non-haredi mother of a profoundly disabled daughter, this aspect of his message does not resonate with me. My child exhibits no signs of spiritual or religious insight, yet I love and cherish her.

Notwithstanding, his underlying message does have general relevance, particularly in Israel where the institutionalization of children with disabilities is promoted by medical and educational professionals’ and by lavish governmental funding. The largest such enterprise, Aleh, receives more than 75% of its money from government sources and it is thriving. 

By contrast, subsidies for such children living at home are meager.

In another responsum, my brother recalled ancient Greece’s reverence for physical prowess.

“The healthy expelled the sick and elderly, abandoning them to die so that the serenity of their lives would not be disrupted.”

Sadly, remnants of that ancient Greek practice still infect our society. 

When I predicted that my brother’s act is bound to galvanize others toward change, he tempered my optimism:

“Well, not from one day to the next; perhaps it will dribble down eventually.”

He may be my little brother, but he nailed it!